Thank goodness. I'd really like to know what led to the change of mind, but in the last couple of years, Netflix has never provided a convincing explanation for ANY of their changes to their service.
I do believe that splitting the services was an invitation for Blockbuster to come eat their lunch, but I doubt that's it. And we all know it has nothing to do with the comments on their blog posts...
Did the stock trend finally set them straight?

Netflix has listened to customers and has decided to cancel the Qwikster DVD spin-off. “Consumers value the simplicity Netflix has always offered and we respect that,” said Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings. “There is a difference between moving quickly -- which Netflix has done very we...

I'm not sure I've ever seen a company do so much to alienate its customers in such a short time. They have been actively de-featuring the web site for the past year, and splitting their catalog into two libraries will be a rather large hassle for users like me who often go to Netflix.com, thinking, "Which movies in my DVD queue are available for instant viewing tonight?"
I'll now have to do a LOT more work cross-referencing between sites. (My queue is consistently over 450 titles.)
For the first time in 8 years as a Netflix subscriber, I'm seriously considering alternatives. Blockbuster can make a KILLING off jilted Netflixers if they manage to integrate all of the queue and site features that Netflix has cut.

DroidMatters reports that the Netflix app for Android now supports all 2.2 and 2.3 devices, and posted a screen shot of the app description: It looks like there might be a problem with LG Thrill, but it's great that Netflix is now able to support almost every current Android device (with the p...

I've never seen a technical explanation of how Zediva works but I don't know of a way they could have streamed to customers without circumventing DVD copy protection, which is a DMCA violation. This was apparently not the reason they were shut down, so I'm curious what they were doing to get around that.
Were they encoding analog DVD player output on the fly?

HomeMediaMagazine reports that Zediva, the online movie rental service that plays DVDs over the internet on a reserved DVD player to get around licensing content for streaming over the internet, has been shut down by a court injunction. Judge John Walter Aug. 1 said Zediva’s unlicensed business ...

To the person asking about larger accounts, it means that if you want to keep streaming your account price is going up (again). From the Netflix home page, go to "Your Account & Help" and then click "See membership terms & details" and you'll see the new rates.
We already cut our plan back to 3-out from 4-out. Now we may cut back to 2-out. Not like it will bother Netflix; they WANT us to switch to streaming-only, even though they have weak content compared to the pay-as-you-go services like iTunes and Amazon.

On the Netflix blog Jessie Becker announced several important changes for subscribers and new customers: Official announcement of the DVD-only plans: $7.99 for one-out and $11.99 for 2-out, unlimited (dvd.netflix.com). The DVD & streaming unlimited plans are now separated into two $7.99 plans, ...

So this is going to kill Feedfliks and DVDLater, I guess? This is terrible; the anti-customer decisions just keep piling up.
They're making their own site worse and at the same time killing the handful of sites that actually improved the Netflix experience.
Unbelievable.

Daniel Jacobson, Netflix's director of engineering, posted a notice on the Netflix blog that they will be removing DVD-related features from the Netflix open API. We’re making some changes to the Open API program to support the Netflix focus on international streaming. Later this year, we will ...

Removing the avatars I can understand. But the names? A lot of people who contribute content like reviews take pride in their work, and want others who have similar tastes to be able to follow their contributions. Netflix just made this impossible, and I bet this will cut down on the number of new reviews they get. Is this their intent?

Netflix announced that they are removing avatars, nicknames & bios from reviews. We’re removing avatars, nicknames and bios associated with reviews, as very few Netflix members use them. We’re constantly working to improve the Netflix experience, and by removing these little-used features we ar...

@Mike - How are they able to stream DVD content without bypassing CSS? Besides, they're violating the DVD "license agreement" which forbids rebroadcasting. The most amazing thing about Zediva is that they were able to secure any capital for something that was so sketchy from the outset.
@jonkcg - LOL awesome.

Hollywood Reporter: The MPAA is suing Zediva, a site that rents a DVD player and DVD for online viewing, for copyright infringement. In a federal copyright lawsuit filed Monday in California District Court, the MPAA disputes the private nature of the streaming service. Instead, the movie indust...

You can't stream Hollywood DVDs without breaking their copy protection. If what they're saying is true (they actually stream to you from a physical DVD) they have to violate DMCA to do it. Then there's the whole thing about streaming rights being different from physical rental rights, as far as content providers are concerned. I don't see there's any way that this is a legit operation.

At first I thought this was an elaborate prank, but it's really an ingenious idea. Zediva rents new releases for $1.99 (or 10 for $10) by renting customers a DVD player and DVD and then then streaming the movie online. From the Zediva FAQ: How does it work? When you rent a movie on Zediva, yo...

As expected, Amazon launched the Prime Instant Video streaming service as part of the $79 per year Prime shipping service with about 5,000 movies and TV shows at launch. The streaming feature is only available for paid Prime accounts, not educational or "Mom" accounts. As of this morning, Netf...

Folks, people "cutting the cord" is exactly the reason they're doing this. They're actively trying to make Netflix less attractive, so people have a reason to keep their cable.
And this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Netflix got very lucky with their original streaming deals, but their days of cheap streaming content have passed.

paidContent reports that the studios might be freezing the streaming video-on-demand rights to hit TV shows in order to block Netflix from getting the rights. Turner Broadcasting Chairman and CEO Phil Kent: Addressing what he called “the elephant in the room,” Kent singled out Netflix as the fl...

Netflix has already won the DVD-by-mail war, and now they're trying to take an early lead in the online movie and TV show streaming business. Edward Epstein on TheWrap wonders, "Is Netflix Streaming Its Way Towards Disaster?" Where Netflix can buy 10,000 copies of a major title for $150,000 to...

I've been looking for little ways to trim costs here and there (consolidated cable and broadband, dropped all magazine subscriptions, switched to a cheaper VOIP service, etc.). I had already been thinking of cutting from 4-at-a-time to 3. Now I'm thinking of maybe just 2-at-a-time.
I just went through my entire 500-title queue and pulled out a lot of stuff that's probably fine, but I'm just not in the mood for these days to ensure that every disc I do get is something I really want to watch.

Will you change your plan, drop DVDs for streaming-only, or drop Netflix because of the price increase? Will You Change Your Netflix Plan Because of the Price Increase?survey software I recently dropped my Netflix account to 2 DVDs at-a-time because I'm watching fewer movies on DVD and I w...

For people who haven't followed the entire comment thread: No, they do not appear to be grandfathering the old prices- even for very old customers who had rates that had actually been grandfathered once before.
You can confirm this for yourself by clicking "Your Account & Help" and then clicking "See membership terms & details." It will tell you the fate of your current account at the top of the screen.
The only reason this move annoys me is the fact that fewer than 1/3 of my queue is available for streaming (and that 1/3 rarely represents the cream of the crop). I need the DVD plan, and always considered the streaming as a bonus.

Update: E-mail from Netflix announcing price increase added, and it states that the new pricing starts on your first statement after January 2nd, 2011. Having successfully fought and beaten Blockbuster, Wal-Mart, and others, Netflix today announced a price increase on all DVD plans. The price...

Damn, I'm on the 4-at-a-time plan. The wording currently on the 'change membership' page, however, sounds like if I don't do anything I might be grandfathered in on the old prices? I think I'm just going to let it be for a while and see what happens.

Update: E-mail from Netflix announcing price increase added, and it states that the new pricing starts on your first statement after January 2nd, 2011. Having successfully fought and beaten Blockbuster, Wal-Mart, and others, Netflix today announced a price increase on all DVD plans. The price...

Also, the Human Centipede was a disappointment. I felt it was pretty well put-together in a technical sense; you could see the thought and planning put into its construction and editing. However, it was way too predictable, and most of the protagonists weren't very likable. It could have been a cult classic in the hands of a more visionary director/writer.

I'm not really big on watching horror movies, probably due to watching the Night of the Living Dead at a friend's house when I was six (I was unable to sleep the entire night because I thought zombies would attack at any time). So when I saw that one of the grossest movies I've ever seen, The ...

I've watched a LOT of shock/horror films, but as far as gross-out films that I rented from Netflix, I would pick Shallow Ground (which I watched accidentally, confusing it with Danny Boyle's 'Shallow Grave') and The Last Horror Movie.
They were both gross in more of a soul-crushing way than anything else, but Shallow Ground was very poorly executed as well.
The worst film(s) I've ever seen period are the August Underground series, which are simulated snuff flicks, done in POV style. They are utterly disgusting. Like with the Hostel films, I felt like a bad person for having watched them.

I'm not really big on watching horror movies, probably due to watching the Night of the Living Dead at a friend's house when I was six (I was unable to sleep the entire night because I thought zombies would attack at any time). So when I saw that one of the grossest movies I've ever seen, The ...

We have two TiVo HD units and absolutely love them. The TiVo Premieres have been out a year, and if you check the "tivo community" forums, you'll see that they still pretty much suck. Slow interface. System crashes. Only partial HD support in the interface.
I'd hope they'd have their act together by now, but it's sounding like the 1st generation Premieres simply aren't worth it. (Too bad, because they have much faster processors than all previous units.)

I'm looking to add a second HD cable box and TiVo's new $99 offer for a Netflix-ready Premier makes a lot of sense. The only tradeoff is a one-year commitment at $20 per month for the service ($7 more than the normal fee). You can also get the Premier for free, but this offer requires a 2 year c...

LOL @ these comments. I'm wondering if this has anything to do with the greatly increased Netflix stream load times I've seen over the past month or so? Once a stream's actually playing it's usually fine, but recently it's been taking up to 2 minutes before things will even start buffering, which is the worst I've ever seen it.

Updated 3:45pm: I have written a follow up to this post here: "Update On My Netflix and Akamai Story With Comments From Both Companies" Updated 10:26am: I thought my post was pretty clear, but just in case there is any confustion, I am specifically talking about Netflix's current streaming busin...

For the past three weeks maybe, I've noticed that getting the stream started (before it even starts buffering) takes much longer than usual. 30-seconds to a couple of minutes. Once the buffering and playing starts, though, everything seems fine. The delay is long enough that a couple of times I've thought the computer had hung- only to find that everything is still responsive.

Ray writes, "I'm using Qwest DSL with typical download of 5-6 MBPS. I use Windows 7 media center for Netflix control. I have been experiencing delays on movies about every 10-20 minutes ever since the Netflix shutdown a few weeks ago. The delays only occur during the 5pm - midnight hours any day...

I wish I could kill cable. Until recently, we've only ever had "basic" and even now we still don't have any premium channels, just an expanded "basic" lineup. Ever since Lost went off-air, I literally don't watch any television right now- not even shows I actually like (South Park and Futurama).
I've switched completely to watching DVDs and Netflix/Amazon streaming offerings. My wife is a TV junkie who hardly watches any movies, and the kids watch a lot of cartoons and educational shows. Still, the rates we're paying for cable- even with our recent bundle deal, are way more than I think is worth it.

Ryan Lawler from NewTeeVee did some digging and discovered that more than 500,000 people have dropped cable in Q3, and alternatives like DirecTV and Dish Networks are not accounting for all of the defections: But a funny thing happened in the second quarter, when, for the first time ever, IPTV ...

Yeah, the digital copies are not very useful at the moment. For one thing, all the ones I've gotten had expiration dates for when you could claim the copy that were set at the title's release date. For example, the DVD is printed in July and you have until September of the same year to claim your digital copy... but what if the disc sits on the shelf at Best Buy until October? Too bad, you don't get your copy.
The other problem, of course, is they're all DRMed and won't necessarily work on your device or player of choice. Much easier to rip the DVD to your NAS device if you like having digital copies around.

NewTeeVee reports that Amazon & Wal-Mart are offering digital copies of more titles with DVD or Blu-ray purchases, but is it enough to counter Netflix's low subscription offering? Amazon is expanding its Disc+ On Demand program, which allows users who purchase a DVD to instantly download it onl...

Yep, we were paying over 170/mo for cable, internet and VOIP- all from different providers. We switched our cable from Comcast to Frontier (formerly Verizon) FIOS and will be changing our VOIP when our Vonage contract is up next month. But already we're paying about $50/month less for more channels (and better picture quality) and faster Internet.

TechCrunch reports that more than 275,000 Comcast customers cut the cable TV cord last month, and Comcast is blaming the economy: During the earnings call, Comcast blamed the drop on the lousy economy. Always a handy excuse. Sure, many people are struggling right now, and it makes sense that th...

Netflix Instant has a whole "TV Reality Programming" category with stuff from several dozen different shows. I'm not really up on TV, but I get the impression that it's mostly cable reality shows, not network stuff.
I've grown more and more pleased with the online offerings. A third of my DVD queue is now available for instant viewing which is great for when I'm between DVDs.
I just wish that either Netflix or one of the 3rd party sites would give me a view that ONLY shows titles in my DVD queue that are available on Instant- or at least a view that lets me sort by Instant availability. It's a pain scrolling through 500 movies looking for instant titles when I'm in the mood to watch something.

Now that Netflix has added a lot of new content, how would you rate the selection of movies and TV shows available for streaming? My buddy David Freeberg noticed a lack of reality TV programming: What were you surprised to see available for streaming, and what is missing?

I recently started a nightly weight-loss fitness regimen, and when I work out I like to watch adrenaline-pumping fast-paced movies (to distract me from the pain). I've thus done a fair amount of queue reshuffling for now, moving all the "man movie" stuff up front. Oh thank you, 1980s- I never appreciated you until now.
Anyway, I have a worksheet of movies I eventually need to see, ranked in order, corresponding to IMDB rating. The number one film on that list is (and has been for some time) Casablanca. Bogie's gonna have to wait until my skinny jeans fit.

James Surowiecki in the New Yorker wrote an interesting story about procrastination, Later. A similar phenomenon is at work in an experiment run by a group including the economist George Loewenstein, in which people were asked to pick one movie to watch that night and one to watch at a later d...